Top Modules for Drupal 7

A whirlwind tour of dozens of useful contributed modules for building Drupal 7 sites.

There are many really useful contributed modules to take your site beyond the basics of Drupal core. There are modules to improve, allow, and/or help with everything from administration to workflow, from paths to views, and beyond.

One factor to consider when choosing contributed modules is the recommendations of other experienced Drupallers. So in the list below I've noted some Drupal-as-a-Service (DaaS) platforms that have included a module in their service, which is essentially groups of experienced Drupallers indicating they find a module useful (and reliable enough) for a very large number of sites. I've also noted when at least some of a module's features are part of core in Drupal 8, which is an indication that very senior indeed Drupallers consider it useful for most sites.

indicates some/all of module's functionality is part of core in Drupal 8.

A key principle of module usage is to use as many as you need, but no more. Some of the modules (or their submodules) listed below are really useful when you are building or configuring the site, but don't need to be enabled for just visiting it or editing its content and so should normally be disabled on live/production sites.

indicates module should only be enabled on live/production site if truly required by content editors.

Requires Token.Provides a mechanism for modules to automatically generate URL aliases for the content they manage. Human-friendly URLs (e.g.,"about" rather than "node/72") are important for accessibility, usability, and SEO.

A filter that helps avoid broken links and incorrect paths in general text fields (e.g., Body, etc.). These tend to arise when full URLs ("http://sample.edu/about") or relative path URLs ("about") are used in general text fields instead of absolute path URLs ("/about") for internal content.

Redirects users from one URL to another. When used with Pathauto, "automatically generates path redirects to ensure that URL alias changes do not break existing links." This is considered the best practice for SEO and usability.

Requires Chaos tool suite.Required by Administration views and Views bulk operations. Creates customized lists and displays from already entered content. Along with fields, this is the heart of adding content once but being free to display it multiple places and multiple ways. (For those familiar with relational databases, fields & Views let you use the power of relational databases to wrangle your content, while still keeping content adding and editing as simple as word processing and online shopping.) Submodules include views_ui

Requires installation of (non-Drupal) editor libraries.Allows users to edit contents with rich text editors such as CKeditor and TinyMCE. Permits inclusion of more than one rich text editor in the same site.

"Provides an input filter that allows site administrators to configure which HTML elements, attributes and style properties are allowed" (based on whitelists). This lets administrators permit content editors to include images in general text fields without giving them access to Full HTML. (Allowing Full HTML is a security risk and just generally a Bad Idea.)

Frequently used

These are modules I install on many sites, but not all of them need the functionality provided.

Requires Entity API and Chaos tool suite.Provides a field type that can reference arbitrary entities (nodes, etc.). Can display the field either as a link to the entity or as a rendered entity (for example, it can show either a link to a node or the node itself).

Views

"[R]eplaces the Views' default single- or multi-select boxes with radio buttons or checkboxes, respectively. Description fields and Select All/None links can be added to exposed filters to make for a better user experience."

Blocks

Allows the definition of block types (like content types, only for blocks instead of nodes). This has various benefits, including making it easy to add distinct fields to blocks, use WYSIWYG editors for block content, and the like.

Lets site builders add CSS classes to any block through the block's configuration interface. This lets you really take advantage of the block-centric responsive design of themes like Open Framework and Stanford Framework.

Context

Allows site builders more fine-grained control over what is shown, where it is shown, and how it is shown ("reactions") on any given page based on a much wider and more flexible range of criteria/"conditions" than Drupal core. There is a lot of power in this module: with it you can have the same block show up in the header of one page but in the footer of others or have different themes depending on the path and much, much more.

Requires Context"Provides a set of Context reactions that allow you to set HTTP Response Headers for each context on your site. It is a generalized framework for response header handling that allows the sending of any arbitrary header value(s)." You can thank Whitehouse.gov for this one!

Requires ContextImproves the administration experience of the Context module by providing "a list of contexts, their conditions and reactions in a simple view … The intention of this module is to provide a means of inspecting all contexts in one easy screen."

Requires Context"Adds a new condition to the Context module that allows performing regular expression tests on the useragent string ($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']). This allows adding different reactions based on the user's browser, operating system, or other needed contexts that may be found in the useragent string."

"[A]llows you to take full control over how your content is displayed using a drag and drop interface. Arrange your nodes, views, comments, user data etc. the way you want" by defining custom view modes. Site builders can define how one piece of content should be displayed in different places such as teaser lists, search results, the full node, views, etc."

Development

Allows administrators to export and import content types and other entity definitions (taxonomy, user, field definitions, field groups). This is great for sharing structures between sites, instead of rebuilding them by hand each time. (Note, it does
not
import/export the content/data, just the structure/definitions.)

Files and Images

"File entity provides interfaces for managing files. It also extends the core file entity, allowing files to be fieldable, grouped into types, viewed (using display modes) and formatted using field formatters."

Other

"Back up and restore your Drupal MySQL database, code, and files or migrate a site between environments. Backup and Migrate supports gzip, bzip and zip compression as well as automatic scheduled backups." [I use this when I can't use shell scripts in the command line on the server.]

Adds more flexibility and control to Drupal's core text format system. It allows site builders to: set allowed text formats and/or default order of text formats per field; hide format tips and/or hide more format tips link per role; and hide format selection per role per entity.

"Allows you to create and modify your
own breadcrumbs based on node type." (Breadcrumbs are that trail of links indicating the way to your current page, usually displayed just above or below the page title.)

"Provides a widget for inline management (creation, modification, removal) of referenced entities. … Existing entities can also be referenced." This solves the chicken or egg problem for referencing content that hasn't been created yet!

Job Scheduler (drupal.org/project/job_scheduler)

An API (helper module) "for scheduling tasks once at a predetermined time or periodically at a fixed interval."

JW Player()

Link checker (drupal.org/project/linkchecker)

Periodically checks for broken links in node types, blocks and cck fields and reports the results.